Wednesday, 9 January 2008

Y: The Last Man - Unmanned

There was a long hesitation before I was willing to buy this comic,
the premise has immature male fantasy written all over: everything
that's bad about comics really. But, I was looking for something else,
and so far I'm happy with my experimentation. This first volume has a
very sci-fi feel. In particular, the conflict that establishes the
characters and series is very much a sci-fi idea. In fact, it now
appears that it's a pretty direct derivation of Frank
Herbert's The
White Plague, which D is currently
reading.

In brief, every male mammal suddenly and catastrophically dies. All
except for one guy. You can probably pick that up just from the title,
though. Unlike the other comics I've been reading, this one is written
and set quite recently: 2002. It does give it a more immediate, less
abstract feeling.

I do have a criticism however. Yes, the sudden death of 50% (any 50%)
of the population would be pretty devastating, but I doubt the social
collapse would be quite as bad as depicted. Maybe I'm just disloyal to
my gender, and there is the post-Katrina, New Orleans melt-down to
consider.

Anyway, I'm starting to understand why heavy comic book readers make
such a big deal about publishers. Just about every comic that has
looked interesting enough to buy has been published by Vertigo, an
imprint of D.C. Comics. I do now have one comic published by Marvel,
I'll be sure to let you know how that goes when I read it.

Oh, and the obvious, juvenile male fantasy has not played
out. Fortunately. So I will be continuing with the series. At least
for now.